An online media distribution service, such as the service currently available at www.sling.com, distributes content that is obtained from one or more sources to viewers over the Internet or a similar network. Distributed content may include television content, movies, other audio/visual content, audio content and/or the like. Typically, viewers can connect to the online distribution service using a conventional web browser or other client to obtain streaming or file-based content as desired. Because users of such services typically demand a large variety of content, such distribution services often receive their distributed content from any number of different production sources, syndicators, web-based services and/or other media sources as appropriate.
A variety of remote control devices are available to navigate on screen user interfaces of media files from content sources for such online media distribution services such as www.sling.com. Attempts have been made to configure these remote control devices with a reduced numbers of buttons while still enabling operational functionalities such as navigating through content in an on screen user interface or controlling the streaming media from a media distribution service. In general, these remote control devices use a reduced button set configured in a first part for navigating the user interface and in a second part for operating the streaming media. When navigating the user interface the control buttons for managing the streamed media are not operational.
As a result, it is desirable to have multi-functional button controls on the remote control device that do not add additional control buttons but allow for control of the streaming media for navigating the on screen user interface along with the other navigation buttons customarily used for navigating the on screen user interface. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.